


underneath my skin there is a violence

by thatcolossalwreck



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatcolossalwreck/pseuds/thatcolossalwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima chuckles, but it breaks halfway into a cough; blood covers her tissue, and she says, “There are worse things than death.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	underneath my skin there is a violence

**Author's Note:**

> please write cophine fic! also unbeta'd

Cosima is a scientist because she loves.

Scientists are often misunderstood, she had decided when she was younger, because the scientists she saw on the telly were socially inept, emotionally stunted, had a degree in science because of fascination. _They’re wrong._

Scientists do not go into the field for a lack of passion, of feeling. Scientists views the world like a lover, needs to understand it on every level, needs to cherish it, needs to write love letters about it, needs to document it so that everyone can love the world, too.

She loves—she loves fully and unabashedly, and she understands when she loves, can express it, and maybe there _are_ socially inept scientists, but she is not one of them. She considers everything, everyone, anything surrounding her as the pinnacle of civilization and evolution, and feels connected to the whole forsaken world. _We all start the same,_ she thinks. Evolutionary development. It makes her feel like a fly on the wall, a secret viewer in the story of us.

 _But we end differently_.

Unfortunately, her ending is seemingly similar to one she’s already seen.

 

/

 

Delphine doesn’t slam the door when she leaves, and it hurts Cosima more than she’d thought capable.

In the end, Delphine just wants forgiveness.

 

/

 

Cosima had finished packing hours ago, but she languishes over her black folder, its contents barely slipping out, showing a face like her own, but subtly different, a physicality that some might have missed with a cursory glance. She fiddles with her pink cellphone, hovering over Sarah’s number and biting her lip because Leekie did find out, and it _was_ from her, and she’s sorry.

She also half hopes that Delphine would burst through the door, slamming it closed this time, and raise her voice with an accent that makes her think of smoke and heat and tell her _I’m not leaving here until you understand._

But Cosima _does_ understand, so that fantasy is very wrong, and she can’t think of a way that would let her and Delphine stay together. Sarah gets Paul, but she’ll be wrested away from Delphine. It’s too deep in, the betrayal. They start the same, but they’ll end differently. Sarah and Paul will find each other after the mess, but Cosima will be alone.

It’s alright.

Follow nature’s rules.

 

/

 

This time, Cosima does press call, but before she can, Alison’s name flashes on the screen, and her words are what makes the red light in the back of her eyes turn green.

“I’ll take the next flight out,” Cosima says into the empty room, and Alison’s clipped, yet softer than usual tone, tells her _okay_.

 

/

 

When she arrives in Toronto, the Canadian winter had left behind constant drafts of cold wind, and Cosima tightens her jacket; she does not think of the last time she had worn it, when it was bare skin, when she had practically skipped to the store, when she did not have that pain in her chest, and that pain, she amounts that to being sick. She’d been coming down with a cold.

Alison should be waiting outside for her, in her minivan without her children, probably without a smile to greet her. Cosima thinks that’s the best, does not need someone to be happy, wants solemnity.

But the pain in her chest lurches, and there’s a pressure that needs to get out, along with something wet and sticky, and she’s reminded of drowning before she coughs into her hand.

 _Well shit,_ she thinks, and really, it’s somewhat anticlimactic, but she’s been through much in the past 24 hours to add another level of anxiety and fear onto her already high levels of grief and anger. So when Alison spies her and shouts her name, she quickly wipes it off onto a handkerchief and walks to Alison’s car. The German lasted for quite a time when her illness had surfaced, and she will, too.

She won’t admit it, but her fingers tap nervously along her thigh, but that’s another time, another variable to deal with; right now, Sarah’s birth mother is here, Helena is somewhat less of a threat, and

Delphine is miles away.

 

/

 

Except she isn’t.

 

/

 

Sarah’s birth mother is a surprise.

So is her sudden collapse.

 

/

 

She wakes up in what she presumes to be Sarah’s bed, and she’s wrong because there are soft things in here, like flowers and coloring books on the walls, and Sarah is sitting open legged on a pink stool, a furrow to her eyebrows and a set to her jaw.

“What the hell was that?” Sarah questions, harsh, but underneath the scrutiny, Cosima hears concern, hears fear.

“Not following nature’s rules, apparently.”

She’s being witty.

Sarah’s eyebrows furrows further, and Cosima looks at her, thinks of a _perhaps,_ of a _maybe_ ,of circumstances where she could have been _her_ , could’ve been a street-smart thug, something else, but not lesser than a PhD student. What made her her? What made her Sarah? A simple matter of environmental factors? She was taller than Sarah, taller than Alison. Maybe she had depended far too much on letters, on nucleotides. She was taller than her. She really shouldn’t be.

Cosima shakes her head, tries to rid herself of her questions. _Follow the science_ , she thinks.

Evolutionary development did not provide all the answers, only fragments.

“What?” Sarah’s rough accent manages to break her of her thoughts.

“Nothing—sorry,” Cosima mumbles, tries to sit up, but ends up clutching her chest and coughs. There is no blood this time, but Sarah hands her a tissue anyway.

“What’s going on, Cosima?” Sarah runs her hand through her hair. “When the German…” she trails off.

“I know,” Cosima soothes. “I ran tests on her blood. I didn’t find anything, so really, I’m as confused as you are.” Cosima looks up to the ceiling, folds her hands.

She has an inkling, actually. Clones die. Nature’s rules.

“Well, will this happen to all of us then? The coughing and the blood?”

Cosima turns to look at Sarah, takes in her worried look, and says, “Probably.”

Sarah frowns, rings her hands together.

“No cure?”

Cosima isn’t too sure. She’s not a medical doctor.

“There might be.”

Sarah stares at her for a bit before her lips break out into a small grin.

“Well, doc, if it means I get a less chatty Cosima, I guess it all can’t be too bad.”

Cosima chuckles, but it breaks halfway into a cough; blood covers her tissue, and she says, “There are worse things than death.”

 

/

 

She understands Leekie’s concern because she is his test subject, but the way the light casts shadows onto his face reminds her of a fallen angel who thought he could play God. She feels examined, feels possessed, feels a synthetic divinity touch her bones when he looks at her.

“I’ll make you better,” he says, and she feels like a robot with parts he wants to interchange, as if he’s taken every part of her DNA as small little screw drivers only he knows the map to. Sarah is next to him, something like an apology in her eyes.

Cosima’s too tired for anything else, so she nods and falls back asleep.

 

/

 

Alison is the one who wakes her up. She must look terrible by the way Alison absent mindedly caresses her forearm with her thumb and calls her _sweetie_.

“What is it, Alison?” Cosima mumbles. “I’m tired. Where’s Leekie? He’s supposed to _fix_ me.”

Sarah pops her head into the room with something of an amused smirk.

“Not sure _he’s_ going to fix you, yeah?”

Before Cosima can react, Sarah opens the door further, and Delphine is there, her eyes shining and worried, and Cosima just flops her head back onto the pillow.

Alison gives her a warning look.

“ _Behave_ ,” she says.

Sarah winks.

 

/

 

“Cosima,” Delphine starts, and the lilt of her accent makes the sharp pain in her chest worsen, and she’s sure it’s got nothing with dying cells.

“Leekie send you here?”

Delphine’s shoulders droop at her curt response.

“ _Oui_ , but I would have come on my o—”

“I still don’t know if I can believe you, Delphine,” Cosima cuts her off.

Delphine nods.

“I understand.”

It’s unnerving, the way Delphine surrenders, droops, how she can’t really lift her head, and Cosima doesn’t want to be the cause of that, wants Delphine to hurt like she has, but she _doesn’t_.

“How are you going to save me?” Cosima tries to change the subject.

Delphine visibly recollects herself and gives her a coy smile and says, “I’ve got a doctorate in immunology, _chérie._ ”

 

/

 

She gets worse before she gets better. She doesn’t quite understand the process itself; evo devo is not medicine, is more like archaeology, so she just nods when Delphine tries to explain, tries to not to focus on the way she seems to be heaving up her weight in blood and the way Delphine caresses her neck when she’s bent over the sink.

“ _Désolée_ ,” Delphine whispers.

Cosima looks up and wipes her mouth.

“Guess you were right,” and her voice is weak, raspy.

“Right?” Delphine tilts her head in confusion, and it’s goddamn _adorable_.

“What you said before,” Cosima supplies. “You were trying to protect me.”

It’s her way of apology. Outright apologizing, it’s not in her DNA.

 

/

 

 

 

 


End file.
